Entertainment

6 Killer Google Chrome Extensions for Social Media Addicts

About a year ago, Google launched Chrome, their super fast, open source web browser. Since then it has grabbed just over three and a half percent of the world's web browser market, according to Net Applications. That's not bad, but still puts Chrome firmly in fourth place behind Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. One of the reasons why Chrome has been stuck in fourth place: extensions — Chrome hasn't got them.

Or more precisely, Chrome doesn't have them yet. At least, not officially. If you ask most Firefox fans the main reason they won't switch to Chrome, a good majority of them will probably cite its lack of extensions. But that might change, because Chrome extensions are coming — perhaps soon. And for users of the developer's build of Chrome, they're already here. So for those of you brave enough to use the unstable developers release of Chrome, here are 6 extensions that social media addicts will want to install.

Where to Find Chrome Extensions

Chrome only has extensions enabled in the developer release. To get that release, you have to subscribe to the Chrome Dev Channel. Once you've downloaded the developer's version of the browser, you can begin to install extensions.

However, Google has recently dropped hints that an official extensions gallery may be coming soon, which also indicates that support for extensions in the stable release of Chrome might be right around the corner.

Once you've installed some extensions, you can manage them by navigating to chrome://extensions in the address bar or clicking on 'Extensions' in the tools menu. Chrome extensions are still a very new animal, and Chrome's developer build changes frequently, so be prepared for the extensions listed below to break on occasion.

6 Must-Have Social Media Extensions

Staying up-to-date with email is one of the most important tasks for social media fanatics, and Chrome makes that task easier for Gmail users with the Gmail Checker extension. It's one of Google's official sample extensions and adds an indicator icon next to the address bar in Chrome that shows you how many unread messages you have in Gmail.

The extension only works if you're logged into Gmail, but that's nice because it means you don't actually have to share your password with any third-party.

There are a bunch of Twitter extensions for Chrome, but the best one might be Chromed Bird. It's a fairly polished extension that lets you read and reply to tweets directly from within Chrome. It worked very well in my testing today, though you do have to share your username and password with the app (no OAuth support).

Chromed Bird's icon changes color when you have new tweets waiting, which is a nice visual cue, but the extension has no support for @reply or DM notifications, even though it has (non-working) tabs in the UI for filtering those types of messages. In all, Chromed Bird is very barebones, but functional as a basic, in-browser Twitter client.

You should also check out Metrist, which is highly rated, but in Chinese (and I couldn't get it to work properly).

If you're less concerned with tweeting, but would rather just stay up-to-date with tweets in your stream, then Twitter Ticker is a great extension to have. Once installed, the addon will scroll tweets in the bottom status bar of the browser as they happen. Holding your mouse over the scroll will pause it.

On its own, that's not very impressive, but when used in tandem with Chrome Bird — which, lacks advanced tweet notifications — Twitter Ticker is definitely very useful.

Micro Last.fm is a very simple set of controls for Last.fm radio. It certainly lives up to its name by offering a super tiny UI that lives in the bottom status bar in Chrome. One of the nicest things about Micro Last.fm is that it doesn't need your login credentials — and you don't even need to be logged into Last.fm for it to work!

The extension functions by opening up Last.fm radio in a new tab in Chrome, and then linking itself to that tab so you can control the radio station.

There are a bunch of Google Reader addons for Chrome, but most just display your unread count or allow you to subscribe to feeds in Reader more easily. TPGoogleReader does a lot more than that, however. Made by the same person as Micro Last.fm, it is one of the most complete Google Reader extensions currently available for Chrome.

Perhaps its most compelling feature is that you can set it to automatically open stories in a new tab in Chrome as they come into Google Reader and mark them as read. For heavy RSS readers that might be a nightmare, but for those subscribed in Google Reader to just a handful of feeds, the feature offers a way to get news pushed to you as it happens throughout the day without ever having to actually visit Google.

Also check out Google Reader Checker, which just checks Reader for unread items, but does it in an elegant way.

Facebook Notification Checker works just like Gmail Checker, but for Facebook. It adds an icon next to the address bar in Chrome that alerts you to new notifications in Facebook. In my testing it was a little finicky and didn't always catch new notifications, but for avid Facebook users it will nonetheless be useful.

One of the nicest features of Facebook Notification Checker is that it doesn't require you to give it your username and password — you just need to be logged into Facebook in order for it to work.

What other Google Chrome extensions would you recommend to social media addicts? Let us know in the comments.

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